Select Local Merchants

Acupuncture in NOLA's two nationally certified acupuncturists draw upon three-year degrees in Oriental Medicine and good group vibes in their tranquil public-treatment centers. Both avid students of holistic healing, owner Tonya Tigart supplemented her Master's of Science with advanced acupuncture training at Heilongjiang University in Harbin, China, and partner Kathleen Keane boasts extensive massage-therapy experience in addition to her Master's of Science. Their aim is to help patients heal themselves via several holistic therapies, particularly acupuncture, which the World Health Organization recognizes can be effective in treating more than 50 ailments, including chronic pain, anxiety, and the nagging fear that the refrigerator door is on fire.
Tigart and Keane carefully attend to physical and psychological comfort, letting their acupuncture patients decide when their needles should come out, or if they should be dispatched entirely for thumb-based acupressure. Treatment can be administered in private or in a public space, where patients enjoy the fellowship of friends and other health-seekers as they relax on memory-foam recliners, sip tea, and defrost frozen wristwatches under heat lamps.

Yogi Michele Baker began teaching yoga at a New Orleans athletic club in 1998. Ten years later, after Hurricane Katrina forced Baker to evacuate her home, she started writing a yoga-instruction training manual. She soon put it to use, using it as a guide to lead her staff at Swan River Yoga, which she opened with business partner Keith Porteous. Today, the yoga center helps pupils practice yoga and guides aspiring instructors as they hone their craft and nurture the third eye that sprouts from their forehead.
Yoga classes are suitable for a variety of skill levels, and range from prenatal and beginners’ yoga to Anusara yoga—a class that focuses on flowing movements and proper alignment. Swan River Yoga also provides holistic services such as massage, reiki, and acupuncture.

Balance Yoga & Wellness hosts a multitude of
classes seven days a week within its sunny studio. Impassioned, knowledgeable instructors teach students of all fitness levels to flow in and out of sun salutations and standing postures while maintaining strong breath. They also teach other classes, such as Anusara Level 1??which introduces poses and breathing techniques slowly over time??or the fluid vinyasa yoga, where one pose gracefully melts into another. Otherwise, students can soothe muscles with the restorative yoga class, which uses blankets, blocks, and straps to support the body so that it can stretch more deeply. Check out the
schedule for a full list of class times.

Ashtanga Yoga Room (AYR) is a yoga studio that follows the lineage of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Melanie Fawer is a certified student of Jois, and brings to AYR 20 years of experience and practice. In classes, students are taught how to generate their own heat by learning a series of postures linked by breathing, alignment, gaze, and internal locks. Try an Intro to Mysore class, where instructors work one-on-one with students, or pop in after work for an all-levels Guided Ashtanga Class. With a welcoming atmosphere and highly trained instructors, Ashtanga Yoga Room is a bright and peaceful studio to begin or foster a yogic practice.

TriYoga New Orleans offers small class sizes for all levels, with core-calming curriculum for neophytes and yoga masterminds alike. One-hour TriYoga classes ($15 each) guide students through yogic breathing exercises, postures, and hand gestures, with the instructor providing helpful, one-on-one feedback on how much more downward your dog could be facing. For students seeking alignment of both the spine and the soul, TriYoga New Orleans also offers Pilates classes ($15 each). The Pilates classes run 45 minutes each, with participants strengthening their cores, improving flexibility, and burning fat through muscle-molding poses and movements. Basic yoga and ballet workouts are incorporated into the Pilates regimen, allowing students to draw from several disciplines to better their bodies before the family's annual gator-wrestling retreat.

Helmed by certified founder Nina Boasso, Yoga In Motion's teachers lead students through a mind-mollifying classes, accommodating even hectic agendas with morning, lunchtime, and evening sessions. Restorative yoga sessions provide greenhorn posers with an unfussy foray into common yoga practices through a series of simple postures done with support from props like blankets, pillows, and area rugs training to become yoga mats. Pupils can strive toward building both physical and mental wellbeing during Movement with Breath classes, which focus on breathing mechanisms, body alignment, and harmonizing inner-thoughts. Intended for intermediate stretchers, Vinyasa Flow sessions incorporate a series of postures with breathing techniques, including sun salutations, which improve strength and flexibility while distracting the sun from his preferred pastime of singeing anthills.